Talk:Smells Like Teen Spirit/@comment-3284502-20140919030330
Okay, so I'm going to continue my quest to make you people watch/read Redwall. Here is a list of reasons you should: 1) Really cute, but vague romance, so you can tell it's THERE, but it doesn't completely take over the series. 2) Epic adventures. Nuff said. 3) For those of us who love food, the descriptions of it here are OFF. THE. CHARTS. There's at least one feast every book and it gets DETAILED. 4) Truly despicable villains for those of us that love them. 5) Some of the characters can be quite complex, even though the author has his agenda of "Good guys are good guys, bad guys are bad guys, we're not gonna mix them if we can help it" 6) Representation of women is EPIC. Even the women who aren't action girls get a good showing as sweet, dependable, nurturing, FRIENDLY people willing to do anything for their abbey. That's how they help, by offering to do chores or something to free up more capable beasts for fighting. (Though, for those of you who like action girls, don't fear, there are PLENTY). 7) Everybody is welcome. I'm not kidding. Every book ends with some variant of "if you're ever in the neighbourhood, please drop by our Abbey!" The author got that people need escapism, people need a place to go, and it offers it to everybody, no matter who they are. And a big theme of the series is that the "greatest" should still hang out and help the humblest - in fact, it's their JOB to defend those who cannot defend themselves. And you can tell the author believed this too. He didn't like having his books compared to other books, but when pressed for an opinion about Harry Potter, he said that "If JKR writes good books for kids, I hope she makes a sqwillion dollars." 8) In that vein, there are some really wonderful mentoring relationships where women mentor boys (Jess-Sam, Sela-Chickenhound, Constance-Matthias to an extent). This isn't seen very often in fiction - typically, if a child is inspired by someone, it's a man. If not, ladies typically only get to mentor girls. This series took one look at that and said "Screw you." Sam idolizes his mother and is often shown looking up to her, getting excited for her, and, occasionally, worrying about her. Chickenhound isn't inspired by and doesn't care for anybeast but himself, but even he admits he did learn a thing or two from his mother - things that kept him from dying from an adder bite. While Constance isn't as much of a mentor for Matthias as Methusalah or Mortimer, he still respects her a great deal. Trouble in the Abbey? Go find Constance. Constance has advice? Listen to her, she knows what's up. In trouble? Don't fuck with Constance. And this is really great because nobody mocks, belittles, or insults them for looking up to, caring about (or, in Chickenhound's case, pretending to look up to and care about), or learning their stuff from a woman. Indeed, nobody even comments on it. And that's pretty cool considering a lot of the machismo ridden, misogynistic gunk plaguing a lot of fantasy and adventure stuff today, it's super fucking nice. 9) Related: Gender roles? What are they? Women and men both cook, both fight, both conquer, both kill, both heal, both nurture, both race, and both lead others. Sure, people make comments like "Two beautiful girls carrying pretty flowers? Charming picture!" but nobody *expects* them to do it if they do not want to. Likewise for men in this series. Nobody so much as blinks at the fact Orlando the Ax, Lord of the Western Plain, is also a doting single father - the only reason they're surprised he cooks well is because he's a WARRIOR and most warriors can't cook worth beans. Him being a man has nothing to do with it. Nobody questions Jess on whether or not she's REALLY a good climber or should she REALLY be hunting down the slavers who stole her son. This extends to appearance as well. Nobody questions the fact Sam wears his mother's bracelet to a formal occasion, nor do anybody that I recall question the fact a villain wants a pink pearl crown because he thinks it's pretty. Once again, Redwall is flipping shit on it's head. 10) It's basically Game of Thrones with cute, fuzzy animals and 100% less sex and sex crime, what more do you GOT fans want?